Monday, June 4, 2012

Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs, Sex, Viagra, Tiger Woods, and Barack Obama

As Michael Bloomberg prepares for his
post-mayoralty, his media company is also evolving. For decades,
Bloomberg LP saw profits soar by selling just-the-facts journalism and
financial information to Wall Street traders. That vision, while still
wildly profitable—Bloomberg LP earned $7.6 billion in revenue last
year—is now changing. The company is aggressively leasing its terminals
abroad even as it is trying to diversify. Last year, Bloomberg spent
almost $1 billion to acquire the legal-­research firm BNA and spent
millions to launch a ­government-information service called Bgov....

...Bloomberg journalists are constantly evaluated for their productivity.
Reporters earn points for the number of clicks their articles receive on
the Bloomberg terminal. “It was well known and is well known that if
you write a story about Goldman Sachs, sex, Viagra, Tiger Woods, and
Barack Obama, you’d get a huge number of clicks,” a former reporter
says....